2017 Warso and UN Global Road Safety Week Launched

The annual West Africa Road Safety Organization (WARSO) Week and the United Nations (UN) Global Road Safety Week celebrations have been launched with a call on drivers and motorcycle riders to minimize travel speed.

Ing. David Osafo Adonteng, Director, Planning and Programmes, National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) of Ghana, who made the call at a news conference in Accra, yesterday, said it was not a coincidence that both the WARSO and the UN themes on road safety for 2017 were all focused on reducing over-speeding on the roads.

Ing. Adonteng said over-speeding needed to be tackled with all seriousness because it was the root cause of killings on the roads, contributing to about 60% of all fatal crashes.

He challenged the Ghana Police Service to adopt an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based practice in arresting drivers who over-sped, adding that the police should be more visible on the roads in order to ensure greater compliance with speed regulations.

He said the NRSC, in collaboration with its stakeholders had put in place measures to remove disabled cars from the roads by July this year.

For her part, the Executive Director at the NRSC, Ing. Mrs Obiri-Yeboah, expressed concern about the alarming rate of road crashes and deaths in the country.

Ing. Mrs Obiri-Yeboah, said statistics available at the NRSC showed that from January 2017 to April 2017 there had been 4, 049 road crashes with 708 deaths and 3,983 injured.

The situation, he said, therefore, called for collaboration by all stakeholders to work closely together

The West Africa Road Safety Organization (WARSO) was inaugurated on May 8, 2008 under the auspices of the Economic Community of West States (ECOWAS) by the then President of ECOWAS, Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, to promote road safety in West Africa.

The main goal of WARSO is to promote and reinforce road safety activities and practices in West Africa through the effective management of road safety and traffic matters with the view to drastically reducing road traffic crashes.

This year, in Ghana, the National Road Safety Week will be observed throughout the country from the 8th to the 14th of May with emphasis on the Accra-Winneba-Mankessim-Cape Coast roads.

The global theme for this year's activities is 'Save Lives: # Slow Down'.

Source: ISD (Doris Sodjah)

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